(Untitled)

[eyelessgame]

Last weekend my father-in-law taught Kate how to solve square roots longhand. He writes out 4225 and shows her - "divide it into pairs of digits, so start with 42. What's the biggest integer no greater than the square root of 42?" "Six." "Right, so that's the first digit of the square root. You write it up here, square it, subtract from 42, get

Comments

[barking_iguana]

I love it. How old are each of them?

Looks like the method extended wouldn't be too terrible for 5 and 6 digit numbes. Still, a calculator would probably be a good choice at that point.

[eyelessgame]

Kate's 13; Robert's 15. And I don't think the virtue of learning the method lies in actually being able to figure out a square root longhand; the virtue of the method lies in seeing the underlying arithmetic and algebraic concepts that make the method work.

[ssha]

That's really cool. My father never got around to teaching me that method that I can recall. Though, that doesn't, necessarily, mean that he really never did (see my info for the answer to the inevitable: Why?). This is only suprising because he started teaching me to do algebraic equations in my head when I was 9 or 10 years old, and later briefed me on the basics of Trig and Calc in preparation for my SATs.

(NOTE: I followed you here from Kit's journal, just to check out if you were as cool as the vibe I got said you were.)

[eyelessgame]

Hopefully I pass the coolness test. :) I write to be read; any comment is flattering.

[ssha]

So far, so good. ;)